Spoiled Rotten
by ethnonyms
Summary: Benedict swore he wouldn't make the same mistakes his father had. Ben wouldn't play favorites. He'd treat all his children equally, exactly the same as one another. He'd give them everything they wanted, more cake and gifts than they could ask for—enough to make other kids jealous enough to die. His children would serve him out of devotion and love, not fear. He'd be a good Father.
1. Shortsighted

Eyes watering, Ben stared weakly down at his plate. He was unable to hide his total revulsion at the food in front of him: already he was gagging, just from the sight and smell.

His father sneered at him from across the table. "All of it. Every bite," he repeated, smiling cruelly at Ben's horrified face.

Ben tried to swallow his fear. He couldn't quite manage it. "P-Papi...Father," he begged, knowing he would never be permitted to address his father so casually as his brother did. "Please don't! Please, don't make me eat the broccoli!"

His father's smirk twisted into an ugly scowl. "You'll do as you're told, Benedict!" he barked, slamming his hands down loudly onto the table. "If you slack off on your shift, you pay the price! Just like every other rotten brat in my tapioca factory! Now, EAT it!"

"You—You wouldn't make Monty do it!" Ben cried, hiding his face in his hands to block out the towering plate of vegetables before him.

He knew it was the wrong thing to say before the words had even left his mouth. "That's because Monty isn't a failure and a coward, like you!" Papi roared, his shadowy form towering over Ben like a creature out of hell. "You'll EAT it! ALL of it! You're not leaving this table, Benedict, not until you've completely cleared your plate!"

A towering wall of flames rose up behind him at the roared words. Ben screamed and covered his head, wishing desperately that the nightmare could be over.

It wasn't _his_ fault he couldn't be like Monty! He'd do anything to have his father's love instead of hate, the way Papi was toward his older brother. It wasn't _fair,_ that Papi treated them so differently!

Trembling, Ben reached out for the plate of broccoli. He forced himself not to gag, gently placing the smallest green piece in his mouth. The taste was more than he could bear.

Satisfied, his father sat back down at the other end of the table. He chuckled evilly at his son's discomfort. "Good boy," he said, clearly not meaning a word of it.

_When I grow up and have kids_, Ben swore to himself, choking down the broccoli with tears in his eyes, _I won't play favorites. I'll treat ALL my children as equals—even if I have two, or five, or three hundred sixty-two of 'em! I'll make sure they're all the same, _exactly_ the same! Maybe I'll even give them the same birthday!  
_

He'd be a good father, Ben resolved fiercely, imagining his own future with tears streaming down his face. He'd give his children cake, and ice cream and presents; he'd make all the other kids in the neighborhood sit there and _watch_ while his sons and daughters received everything they ever wanted. He'd give them the entire world, the very moon in the sky if they asked for it.

And his children would love him and give him their absolute loyalty and devotion in return. Their family would be perfect, absolutely perfect. Ben knew his own children would be so very, very delightful.

Their Father would _never_ make the same mistakes that their Grandfather had. He'd be the greatest Father in the world.

It almost made him want to grow up tomorrow.


	2. Parent

When the Delightfulization Chamber exploded, its five test subjects still inside, Father at first thought he'd made a terrible mistake.

For all that Sector Z had been annoying brats, Father hadn't actually wanted them _dead_. Any of Monty's old teammates would be far more useful to him alive, and besides, his machine wouldn't do much good for him in the future if it were destroyed.

Father had meant to use it on KND operatives all over the world. If those pesky Kids Next Door wouldn't behave when grown-ups asked them to, Father reasoned, he was going to make it so that he didn't _have_ to ask anymore. Those kids would do as they were told without question after they'd been delightfulized, like good, obedient little children should. It was a dream that evil adults shared all around the world.

But now that dream was all up in smoke. That wasn't a metaphor—the lab was literally up in smoke and flames. Father's Delightfulization Chamber had blown a fuse in the middle of the procedure. He coughed, enraged, his yellow eyes struggling to see through the dust and debris that had once been a spotless science laboratory in his mansion.

_Rotten kids_, he thought with a surge of anger. This mess would take days to clean up. Father would make them all stay here and scrub on their hands and knees if he had to, until the job was done!

"Hey out there," he called irritably, as the smoke cleared from the badly destroyed room. "Any of you brats survive? I'm not cleaning this mess by myself!"

He was mostly shouting out of anger—he didn't actually expect to get a response. To his shock, however, a moment later Father heard an injured groan coming from beneath the smoldering wreckage. Immediately he registered that the groan had actually been five, identical groans, all made in such perfect harmony that they could scarcely be told one from one another. Could it be...?

Yellow eyes widening, he dropped his pipe and hurried over to the remains of the Delightfulization Chamber. There would be no salvaging his test machine, but maybe there had been some results from the experiment before it all went terribly wrong. He had to be certain.

"Come out of there!" Father ordered, crudely kicking aside a fist-sized hunk of machinery. "All of you, this instant! OUT!"

Five voices groaned again in unison from beneath the rubble. A moment later, the debris stirred, and five pairs of hands lifted away the biggest chunk of scrap. The children's movements were painful, unsteady, but perfectly synchronized. The effect was strangely uncanny.

Together, Sector Z shoved aside the rubble of the Delightfulization Chamber. All of them worked with identical shaking limbs, holding their heads painfully in the exact same place.

"Ow..." they groaned in unison, disoriented. Moving as one, they stepped out of the ruined machine that had buried them, emerging in perfect formation out into the fluorescent light of the laboratory. "What's...what's happened to us?" they asked together, sounding confused and afraid. The five children looked down at themselves in unison, realizing with expressions of horror that their appearances had completely changed.

Father could hardly believe his eyes either. The children standing in front of him resembled nothing close to the snot-nosed brats Sector Z had been: their scruffy sweaters and sashes were gone, replaced by preppy jacket-suits and frocks, all perfectly tailored to uniform regulations. The children's ugly hats and mussed hair were a thing of the past; their hair was now smoothed down neatly or done up in tight braids, and the boy in the tinfoil helmet even wore a safe red helmet. Their once-grimy boots had become neat shoes, laced up and squeaky clean. The five children spoke and moved as one entity, seeming to share all the same actions and even thoughts. Best of all, Father saw that their dark, rebellious eyes now shone a pale and empty shade of blue. Those blank eyes were devoid of all desire for resistance and childish play.

Sector Z was more delightfulized than Father had even hoped to dream. The blown fuse in the chamber hadn't ruined his experiment at all—in fact, it had _enhanced_ it, at least eleventy-billion fold!

Father couldn't help himself: he laughed. His whole body shook with it, lean dark silhouette looming over his newest creations, a black shadow that threw its head back with howls of laughter that spawned fire in a wall behind him. He'd shelved his ridiculous hopes of having children as soon as he'd gotten to be an adult, knowing how putrid they all were...but that had been before he knew how wonderful his _own_ children would be. These five delightfulized former brats were going to make his wildest dreams come true.

"_Yes_," he hissed, throwing up his hands in savage joy. "Yes, _yes_, I've succeeded! They're perfect! These children are DELIGHTFUL!"

The Delightful Children stepped away from him in sudden fear, their five bodies working as one. "E-Excuse us, sir," they all said, with trembling politeness, "But, we can't seem to recall what's going on. Where are we? _Who_ are we? All of our memories are..."

Father's laughter slowly died down, tapering off into a breathless chuckle.

"Of course, of _course_!" he said grandiosely, stepping menacingly toward the children, not heeding they way they cringed back from him. "How very rude of me to forget! You five are my Delightful Children from Down the Lane, and I am your beloved Father. You live here, with me, in our Delightful Mansion. You're the most smartest, perfectest little children in the whole wide world, and you hate those other misbehaving kids for their DISGUSTING immaturity—_especially_ the Kids Next Door!"

"Kids...Next Door?" the children asked, blinking their pale blue eyes in confusion. "Who are they, Father?"

"A group of vile, despicable children," Father hissed, looming over them. "Horrible little brats, who do nothing except misbehave and create trouble for adults like me! _Can't you see how awful that is?_"

The last words were shouted, flames rising wildly. The Delightful Children jumped in place, startled, and nodded quickly. They no longer looked quite so frightened of him, more contemplative over his words.

"But that's terrible, Father!" they said together, looking alarmed. "We _hate_ children who make trouble for adults! They're the most horrible rotten pests in the whole world! In fact...all of them need to be _eliminated_."

It was exactly the answer Father was looking for. "Yes, they certainly do," he purred, letting the flames die around him. He extended an arm toward the bewildered children and took their five small hands in one of his, leading them toward the kitchen of the mansion. "Come, my Delightful Children. Let's go have a nice bowl of ice cream from the freezer, and we can talk about all the _evil_ things you're going to do to the Kids Next Door when you meet them tomorrow in their giant ugly treehouse!"

"Yes, Father," the children chorused in unison, dark smiles spreading across their angelic faces as they looked up at him. "We would like _that_ very much. Those K-N-_Dorks_ don't stand a chance against the likes of US!"

They laughed. Father laughed with them, the viciously evil sounds echoing throughout the halls of his ornate mansion.

Such a perfect family had surely never existed.


	3. Overwhelmingly

The AMBER Alert went out on the dawn of the second day.

The first thing Father noticed from the report onscreen was that, _wow_, yeah, those Sector Z kids were from _seriously_ out of state—those crummy little 2x4 rides they drove around in must have been more impressive than he gave them credit for, getting the brats all the way out here and back on those days when they stopped by to annoy him every other week. No wonder they'd always been dressed for snowstorms in the middle of the freaking spring.

The second thing Father noticed, with a surge unwelcome surprise and annoyance, was that his Delightful Children were actually _watching_ the report on the news. They'd taken the liberty of pouring themselves twin bowls of cereal and milk for breakfast, chewing quietly in turns and taking in the morning news program with a polite attentiveness that bordered on studious. Predictably, their table placemats were absolutely spotless.

None of that did anything to appease his anger. "Just what do you kids think you're doing?" Father demanded loudly, creating burst of flame from one hand that soared through the air across the dining room and exploded into the television set.

The television shattered noisily, glass and sparks showering everywhere, the remains left smoking in flames. Startled, the Delightful Children cried out in shock and fear, leaping up from the table so that they stood together facing Father. One of their hands clumsily knocked a bowl of their cereal onto the floor in the process, spilling bran flakes and milk all over the carpet.

"F-Father!" the children said quickly, trembling. "What's the matter? Have we...done something to displease you?"

"Now that is an excellent question," Father said, eyes narrowing as he allowed the flames to lick evenly over his body. "Strangely enough, children, I don't recall telling _any_ of you that you had permission to watch TV here in MY house!"

The Delightful Children's faces went ashen. Cowering, they broke down, losing their unison formation to wring their hands anxiously and beseech him for mercy: unorganized, they let loose a frantic chorus of individual "_I'm sorries_" and "_We didn't knows!_" and "_We promise we'll never, ever do anything like that ever agains,_" all jumbled up in a nonsense tangle of words.

Their groveling did little to abate Father's anger. "ENOUGH!" he roared, eliciting frightened gasps and terrified silence.

Satisfied, Father continued.

"I'll let it slide _this_ time, my children, but don't you let me catch you watching TV again," he warned sternly. "Television is a hobby for grown-ups_ only_, do you understand me? For kids your age, that type of fast-paced, highly exciting entertainment would only rot your tiny little brains out! You don't want THAT to happen, do you?"

The children nodded frantically at his words. Eagerly, they chorused their agreement at him, so quickly they couldn't keep their words in time with one another. Father finally allowed himself to relax, flames around him ebbing away to nothing.

"Very good," he said coolly, smoothing down his hair with a careless hand. "Now—why don't you children go and get some paper towels to mop up that spilled cereal over there, and while you're cleaning, I'll make us some yummylicious scrambled eggs and waffles for breakfast?"

The children nodded, postures relaxing. "Of course, Father," they chanted obediently, tentative smiles breaking out on all their faces.

The admiration shining in their pale eyes made him a little unnerved. "Well, go on then!" Father said loudly, waving them off with a sweep of one hand.

They scurried to obey his command. "Yes, Father!" they called behind them, running hastily out of the room to find towels and soap.

With that done, Father turned and headed toward the kitchen, making a mental note to unplug the rest of the TVs in the house at the first available opportunity. He'd have to keep the kids safely locked up inside for a year or so until all the media hullabaloo from their kidnappings had blown over, and the Kids Next Door had given up searching for their missing operatives. The former Sector Z didn't _seem_ to remember anything from their past lives, not so far, but Father hadn't become the pinnacle of adult villainy by making such careless mistakes all willy-nilly.

He'd probably have to forge a mountain of legal documents soon, now that he stopped to think about it. There was also the matter of school enrollment and tax write-offs to consider, as well as spinning up some ten years' worth of memories to spoon-feed the Delightful Children once they got to the point when they inevitably started asking questions about the pasts their delightfulization processed had mercifully erased. Father had some serious work left to do if he wanted to assimilate them into his family for _real_.

He groaned to himself with annoyance, already compiling a mental checklist of matters he'd need to consult with Mr. Boss on later for legal advice. That blowhard could be a real pain to deal with when he wanted to be, but Father begrudgingly admitted to himself that _this_ wasn't something he wanted to screw up. He couldn't afford to have any self-righteous _lawyers_ barging into his mansion a week from now, waving around some lousy birth certificates and demanding that he return his "kidnapped" charges to their "rightful" mommies and daddies, just because Father had no rightful claim to them.

Never mind that any _rightful_ parent would have noticed and put an immediate end to the whiny, snot-nosed brats' subversive KND activities. FATHER had been the the one to do all the practical work involved in improving and remolding the Delightful Children into perfect adolescents, not their so-called _parents;_ he wasn't about to let anyone just waltz in here and steal all the fruits of his research. Those kids were HIS now, and that was all there was to it. And if Father played his cards right these first few months, he knew he stood to gain five invaluable allies to fight for his side in the global, never-ending war on childhood misbehavior and disobedience...not to mention the sweet, sweet satisfaction of knowing he'd turned out to be a better father AND a villain than his sorry dad had ever been! Not THAT would be something to put on this year's Christmas card!

But, first things first: Father had promised to make his children breakfast, and, if he said so himself, he was _quite_ the accomplished master chef.

"_Man_," he mused aloud, letting out a long-suffering sigh as he cracked open five eggs and poured them into the frying pan on the stove. "Even when you've got yourself the most perfect, well-behaved kids in the whole wide world—being a parent sure is a lot of WORK!_"  
_


End file.
